“Whatever can it be, Karl?” Anna whispered after she had loosened Magnus’s arms and told him to try to sleep again. Nobody was paying attention to them any more.
“A woman has fainted.”
“How do you know that? You couldn’t see?”
A smile touched the corners of his mouth as he turned his head to meet her eyes, his own amused. “No, but I knew ahead that might happen.”
She released a long, slow breath, smiling to herself. So, nothing had been left to chance by the Resistance. One of their women had been primed to cause a diversion at any dangerous moment. A signal must have been passed. It had not been Karl and therefore, one of the men standing close by must have done it. Perhaps it was the man who had been struck across the face. It was unlikely she would ever know.
Although the Germans continued their inspection after the woman had allowed herself to recover consciousness, neither returned to question Magnus again.
As the train steamed into Oslo station, Karl stood behind her as they waited with the other passengers to get off. He took her hand and caressed it lovingly. Just for a matter of seconds, she leaned back against him in fond acknowledgement.
Anna and Magnus left the station together, but by the time they reached the nearest tram stop Karl caught them up. On the tram he took at quick look round, but although there were some Germans on board he could see nobody from the train. This time, when they took seats, he sat with Magnus in the window seat beside him, and Anna took a place next to one of the Germans. Other passengers on the tram were following the usual routine of preferring to stand instead of sitting beside the enemy.
At the next stop Anna got out and walked away. There had been no goodbyes said, no final hug for Magnus, but that was how it had been arranged. She could not even look back as the tram rattled on its way.
Chapter Nineteen
At the next stop Anna caught a tram going in the opposite direction to that which Karl and Magnus had taken. It was a relief to put down her suitcase, which had been getting heavier with every step, and she took a window seat. As the tram-driver clanged his bell, she settled back to gaze out at the passing streets that she had known since childhood and to look away when she passed Rosa’s home on the faint chance of being seen and recognised.
It seemed to her that the blight of Nazism was particularly noticeable in this once bright and lively city. Scarlet banners with the swastika hung down on either side of the entrance to the Storting, where previously the now-exiled Government had conducted Norway’s peaceful affairs. The enemy was patronising the open-air cafés and, passing the Grand Hotel, Anna caught a glimpse of the black uniforms of the dreaded SS, seated at the window corner table where Ibsen had once sipped his daily apertif.
At the head of the wide street the Royal Palace, now occupied by Quisling himself, stood on a rise at the heart of the city. In its simple, neo-classical style it was also a palace without encompassing walls to isolate it from everyday life in the city, for the King had always been a man of the people. His broadcasts from London continued to encourage and showed that he was still in close touch.
Anna alighted near the palace and set off down a tree-lined street, looking out for the hotel that was her destination. Then she slowed her pace as she saw some military activity ahead. After another few steps she halted abruptly, seeing with dismay that people were being dragged out of the address that she had been seeking and were being pushed into a waiting army truck. Behind her there came a sudden rush of hurrying footsteps, and she looked round quickly to see a slim, attractive woman of about forty hurrying to catch her up.
“Don’t go any farther, Anna!” the woman gasped urgently. “Come away now! Walk back with me.”
“Who are you?” Anna asked cautiously. “How do you know my name?”
“I was the one who fainted on the train. For God’s sake, do as I say! The hotelier is being arrested now!”
Anna looked back over her shoulder as she hurried away with the woman. A large man with his hands up was being shoved by rifles towards the truck. Then she did not dare watch any more, being powerless to to do anything to help.
“My name is Christina Jensen,” the woman continued as they kept pace together. “I’ve followed you from the railway station.”
“Thank you for what you did on the train,” Anna said. “I hadn’t known an emergency plan had been arranged.”
“The boy’s life was at stake. Yours, too, if the truth had come out. I’d intended meeting you at the hotel to avoid any risk.”
Anna studied the woman out of the corner of her eye. Christina was tallish and in appearance she had the looks and air of a successful Oslo businesswoman in her neat, dark suit, green hat with a feather and her pre-war handbag, gloves and shoes of good leather. Her hair was chestnut and drawn smoothly back into a coil at the nape of her neck, her features very fine and, under arched brows, her eyes were greenish-grey. Although quite slim, she seemed strong and full of energy as if, when young, she had been a top athlete. It was difficult to imagine that she had ever fainted in her life. Yet her performance on the train must have been convincing.
“Where are we going?” Anna asked. “Apart from getting away from here?”
“I’m taking you to my gown shop on Storgaten.”
“How long have you been in business?”
“Since my divorce some years ago. I started in a small way, but with good clothes. I built up a clientele until I was able to move into my present, more prestigious premises. After that I did my buying in Paris. Such lovely gowns! I employed a French vendeuse, who’d had experience in haute couture. She liked Oslo and lived in the apartment above the shop until she went back to France just before Germany invaded Poland. It wasn’t that she thought the Germans would come here any more than the rest of us in Norway, but if there was to be a war she wanted to be home, and I would have felt the same. Now I employ only one seamstress and a part-time milliner, who will help out with the sewing.” She broke off as they came to a tram-stop. “We’ll wait here.”
“What stock do you have? I thought it was virtually impossible to get fabrics or clothes of any kind.”
“So it is. I never have anything new to sell these days. The work at the moment consists of repairing and remodelling women’s own clothes, making a garment out of anything else they manage to get hold of. Sometimes it’s cutting up something to make a coat for a child. Quite often in straitened circumstances my former customers — all so prosperous before the Occupation — bring their pre-war garments to sell back to me. That helps to keep trade ticking over, because otherwise I’d have nothing in the shop for sale.”
Anna listened with interest. Aunt Rosa had often shopped at Christina’s and would be remembered there. It was frustrating not to be able to ask for any news of her. Perhaps at some time she could get Christina talking about her customers and gather a grain or two of information.
“I remember your shop from when I lived in Oslo for a while.”
“Do you? So you know Oslo well?”
“Like the back of my hand.”
“That’s good. Have you any idea what you should do now that you can no longer work at that hotel?”
Anna shook her head. “Everything has changed so quickly. In any other hotel, I’d be hampered by hours of duty in carrying out any sortie for the Resistance. Yet I must get employment soon. I can’t risk the Germans pushing me into a factory for making uniforms or some such work. I must also find somewhere to live.”
“I can help you with that now. You can have the vendeuse’s apartment for as long as you like. Here comes the tram!”
The shop in Storgaten was exactly as Anna remembered it, for she had never gone past without looking in. The elegant frontage consisted of one window and an inset entrance with a gilded cypher on the glass door. Having started out as being expensive and exclusive, there was still only one garment displayed for the view of passersby, artistically draped even though it had been re-trimmed and was secondhand.
Beside it was a stylish hat, which Christina told her had been steamed and re-blocked from one of her own.
Inside the shop the decor was pink and gold. There were a dozen newly furbished hats on stands and some men’s ties arranged in a fan on a table.
“These ties are made from scraps of any suitable left-over material. We try to have a good stock for Christmas, because then they’re snapped up. I’ve even had Germans in buying them to send home.”
As they were early at the shop, neither the seamstress nor the milliner had arrived. Anna saw the room where they worked, large windows giving plenty of light. Upstairs was the salon, the mirrors gilt-framed, its colours in harmony with the shop below. On the floor above was the apartment and Christina led the way up the stairs.
Anna could see that although the rooms were small there was everything she would need and it was pleasantly furnished. “Why haven’t you a tenant here?” she asked. “The door in the hall could be locked against access to the shop and its other door has a flight down to a rear entrance.”
“I’ll show you why.” Christina went to a cupboard in the narrow hallway. Opening it, she stooped down and raised the floor of it up on concealed hinges to reveal a ladder going down into the darkness.
“Wait until I’ve switched on the light and then follow me,” Christina said as she sat down and swung her shapely legs into the aperture.
As the light went on, Anna descended the ladder to find herself in what had been one of the changing rooms for customers on the floor below. The walls were still lined with mirrors. A divan and a comfortable chair had been added, together with a shelf of books.
“What a perfect hiding place!” she exclaimed.
“It was easy to seal it off and it’s quite impossible to detect from the salon itself. To date, ten people have remained hidden here when all the buildings in the street were being searched. Once there were three of them here together.”
“It’s an ideal apartment for me and I’m grateful to you for it.”
“There’s no need to be. The arrangement will suit me as well. Whenever the enemy has made a house-search of these Storgaten buildings I’ve always been afraid the apartment would be commandeered by an officer to install his mistress in it. By the way, how are you at sewing?”
“Not good enough to join your seamstress,” Anna replied regretfully.
“How about helping in the shop? It would give both of us a chance to get away on Home Front matters, leaving the other in charge. At the present time I have to rely on my milliner, who thinks I go off to play bridge or whatever else I tell her.”
Anna hesitated. Aunt Rosa had so many clothes that it was unlikely she ever came into the shop these days. Any acquaintance from the past would be easy to dodge, for the shop bell would always alert her. “I’ll work for you, Christina. Just for as long as the Resistance wants me to be in Oslo and that could be anything from a month to a year.”
“Yes, of course. I’m so pleased you’re going to be here. At the present time the local cell won’t know where you are. I’ll make sure that somebody is told today. Go and unpack now and make yourself at home. Tomorrow is Sunday, so come and spend the day with me.”
As Anna had expected Christina had an elegant home. In the middle of the afternoon when they sat talking the door-bell rang. Christina went to answer it and returned with a healthy-looking young man with ruddy cheeks. Cheerfully, Christina introduced him to Anna.
“Meet your contact, Andreas Nordheim,” she said before leaving them on their own together.
“Welcome to Oslo,” Andreas said, shaking Anna’s hand and then sitting down. “I hear that you had quite an adventurous time getting here. It was a relief to all of us that you escaped arrest with the hotelier and the others. He was one of our best men.”
“Where were they taken?”
He looked grave and shook his head. “To the Gestapo headquarters in Mollegaten.”
She shivered. “Have you lost many people?”
“I’m afraid so. Tell me, were you given any special instructions before you came?”
“No, it was expected that I’d receive them from the hotelier.”
“Right. Then you’ll be ready whenever we call on you. It might not be for a few weeks. We have a lot of tasks in hand, but people have already been allotted to them.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do in the meantime?”
“Only that which has become second nature to all of us in the Resistance. Keep your eyes and ears open for anything that’s unusual or might be of interest to our cause.”
It was not very satisfactory, but Anna had to accept it.
Chapter Twenty
Anna had been ten days at the shop before she wrote her first letter to Margot. She had waited until she could be sure that Greta had been informed personally through the Resistance of her friend’s arrest. It was impossible to give any details of it in a letter, for it could be opened by the German censor, a spot check being made on mail as on almost everything else.
It made her guard her words and she made no mention of Christina’s help or of seeing the arrests. She wrote that when she had found the hotel shut by the German authorities, she’d had to look for other work immediately and was helping in a shop. Next morning she took the letter downstairs to take it later to the nearest postbox. She was dusting the display stands when Christina arrived. One look at the woman’s face was enough to tell her that something terrible had happened.
“Is it Karl?” she burst out frantically, all her colour draining away.
Christina shook her head quickly. “There’s no news of him yet.” She took Anna by the arms. “I have to tell you that your friends at the Alesund hotel, Greta and Margot Sande, have been arrested, as well as several of the local Resistance group there.”
Anna uttered a desolate cry. “No!”
Christina led Anna into her office. “Sit down in here. The two sewing-room women will be arriving at any minute and you don’t want them to see you in this shocked state.”
Anna sank down into a chair. “How did it happen? And why?” she stammered.
Christina perched her weight on the edge of her desk. “I don’t know that either,” she said sympathetically. “I’m afraid it looks as if the somebody must have talked under Gestapo pressure.”
“Don’t you mean torture?” Anna said bitterly.
“Yes, I do,” Christina admitted. “It must have been bad, because Andreas told me the hotelier was the last man ever expected to give way, no matter what was done to him.”
Anna groaned despairingly. “Aren’t those Nazis ever going to halt their barbarism!”
“No, they’re not,” Christina answered wearily on a sigh. Getting up, she patted Anna on the shoulder as she went past to answer the outside bell and admit her two employees. After giving Anna some time to recover in private, Christina returned to find her on her feet and tearing up a letter that had been put ready to post.
“I hope the Resistance won’t be distrustful of me after what has happened,” Anna said in a drained voice.
“But you’ve had nothing to do with it. They know how you saved Magnus. Surely that’s proof enough of your integrity.”
Anna’s eyes were dark blue depths of unhappiness. “But we know that sometimes an infiltrator is allowed to get away with something by the Germans to give false assurance to the Resistance. Perhaps that is what the Oslo group are thinking about me already.”
“Why on earth should they be suspicious in your case? There’s no reason.”
“But doesn’t it strike you as odd that hotel arrests should take place after I’ve left Alesund and then again just before I arrive at the next one? It’s as if I were being protected from involvement!”
“It was chance and nothing more. Stop tormenting yourself! You’ve received dreadful news about your friends and you’re still in shock. Later you’ll think more logically. Take the day off. Go for a walk or rest for a while. Anything you like. After all, you’re only her
e to have cover against German questioning, and you’re a free agent, able to come and go as you like. I’m not even paying you a wage.”
“Neither are you charging me rent. That makes us even.” The tinkling of the shop-bell just then announced the arrival of a customer. “I’ll go, Christina.”
Anna left the office and Christina heard her greet the new arrival. There was a slight quiver to her voice, but a complete stranger would not notice it.
The days went by, warm and full of sunshine for many hours every day and remaining light at night. Anna concentrated on her shop work and it was quite a busy time. Women brought in winter coats that showed signs of wear and these were turned whenever possible, making them look new. Wider pads in the shoulders in military style followed fashion, which seemed to pass along an invisible grapevine even in wartime, taking no heed of international barriers. Anna often thought to herself that the style was about the same as that followed by women in Britain before she left and probably anywhere else where it was possible.
Sometimes a woman brought in one of her husband’s suits to be made into a jacket and skirt for herself, the more elegant resulting from dinner wear or tails. Anna was reminded of Scarlet O’Hara many times when curtains were turned into skirts and blouses. Once a blue and white checked tablecloth made a smart summer jacket.
Anna never went down Karl Johan Gate if she could avoid it, not wanting to risk being seen by her aunt from a window, and she kept a sharp lookout wherever she was in the city. Rosa had always been one for getting out and about, meeting friends, taking walks in the park and sipping coffee at one of the outdoor cafés. There was no reason to suppose that even a war would have changed the pattern of her ways, even though her enjoyment of shopping would have been curtailed by circumstances.
Yet it was in Karl Johan Gate when Anna had been making an important delivery on Christina’s behalf, unable to reach the address by any other route, when a woman’s voice called out shrilly to her. It was just after she had passed her aunt’s home without looking in its direction.
The Fragile Hour Page 20
